


Shrouded in Light

by ribcaged



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 08:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribcaged/pseuds/ribcaged
Summary: There are three sentences Seto Kaiba thought he would never utter out of his mouth, let alone in one conversation. One night, shrouded in light, it burst out all at once.





	Shrouded in Light

_"It seems like you have something on your mind."_

Seto Kaiba is a strategist. In his ideal life, he would have calculated every single second he would live so that he could strive for successfully executed perfection. He wanted the world and all the stars around him to function as close to his sense of order. He quickly discarded anything that coud fail and anything without potential, and hyper-focused on everything else, and created a carefully paved road to victory. It was dangerous.

_"Maybe."_

He never considered the danger. He never considered how his meticulousness, dog-eat-dog mentality could bite him back, because he had never considered how the world would play out if he ever lost. It should have all ended there, right? The world faded to black, for a while, but it didn't end there.

_"There's something I want to tell you."_

While recovering from a begrudging defeat through bitterness, the carefully crafted cogs and coils in Seto Kaiba's brain that had come apart slowly began to turn in a different way, and it was completely beyond his control. The world had crashed down in a slower manner than he had anticipated, and thus Seto Kaiba had begun to drop himself to the world that was not as black and white as he thought. It was terrifying. But as his previous constant state of anger ebbed away, the world seemed more...tolerable? Perhaps five years after running around with hatred and not much sleep finally caught up with him, and he just simply cared a bit less about things so trivial. He was ready to bend his own rules. There wasn't a need to push talented rivals away. There wasn't a need to crush everyone that rubbed him the wrong way.

_"What is it?"_

For example, right now, his eyes glazed across a shirtless silhouette of Joey Wheeler, leaning over his penthouse balcony. The pause after Kaiba's question was heavy and lasted a while. Joey's nervous foot that was tapping away had stopped abruptly and he lifted chin resting on his arm. The midnight neon cityscape of Domino - blues and reds glowing across his wide shoulders and the pinks against his golden hair- danced across him as he swirled around to face Kaiba in front of the balcony doors. It was almost dizzying just to look at him. There was just so much. Whatever otherworldly idea that made him despise the man in front of him before was really beyond him. Five years ago, he would have easily singlehandedly thrown Joey Wheeler off his balcony and laughed. But tonight he was speechless, because right before him, he was graced with a glowing beacon, gold eyes still piercing through the veil of the night.

Kaiba gave himself the leisure to let his mind relax and wander, sinking into the warmth of his eyes ,down to lips that he can still feel traces mapping all over him and burning him up again. He almost forgot he had left a question hanging. He almost failed to notice the small tremble in the lips he was getting lost in, lips that seemed desperate and too afraid to speak whatever was itching on it's mind. And then Joey's voice, deceptively softer than normal, rang through the night.

"I love you."

The carefully crafted cogs and coils in the genius Seto Kaiba's mind took a while to process three words. And when it did, the sheer amount emotion that suddenly bloomed inside of him triggered something of the sort of a fight or flight response. He felt like he was being choked, the sharp intake of breath he took only made whatever that was suddenly flowing into him burn stronger, and he was drowning. So naturally, the knee-jerk response his brain had managed to conjure up was-

"Thank you?"

Shit.

Joey's jaw went slack, and his eyes widened as his own brain caught up with his ears and processed what it heard. "....What?"

This all occurred in the span of five seconds. In the seconds that followed those five seconds, Kaiba had never internally sworn so much in his entire life. He opened his mouth as if to retrace his steps, shut it again, and did that twice.

It would only take a lunge and few strides forward to throw himself out of his own balcony. Because fuck, the hell do you reel back from this?

The sentimentality was there. He was sure of it. The systematic error from his brain to his tongue was something he wasn't too sure of. He wants to blame it on his tongue entirely for this fuck up. It felt numb and heavy and hot just by looking at Joey's pink lips part away before those words came out of his mouth. He was staring at a firework that just happened to confess to him.

"God, that's not what i-" Kaiba whipped his head away, still wide eyed and his mind moving miles an hour trying to figure out what just happened. There was genuinely nothing he could think of that he has done that was more embarrassing than this. He had a white knuckled grip on the balcony doors now, and it started to make his forearms shake a little. That's why the next words that almost came out as a whisper from his mouth was shaky as well.

"I'm sorry." Kaiba heard his voice.

It's a day of firsts for his tongue apparently, from instinctive blurt outs, and now an apology? From the CEO of Kaibacorp? The part of his brain that is giving his mouth clearance for this should be fired immediately. He had no control over what was sputtering out of him now. He hated it. It was uncomfortable and the air was weighing him down, charged with something that he was too afraid to comprehend. He felt like he was going to explode.

And why hasn't the idiot in front of him thrown a solid punch at his face yet? It would feel better than the burning embarrassment that was simmering inside him. Instead the charged air around them fizzled out under a low chuckle from Joey. "Even you can sometimes be an idiot, Seto Kaiba."

The voice was closer than he thought, and when he looked up, Joey had silently crept up to him, now simply inches away. Perhaps five years did a number on Joey too, because he couldn't imagine him doing anything that required silence back in high school. Somehow being closer to his proximity suddenly washed away sort of relief through Kaiba, and that was when he realized Joey wasn't mad at him at all. Joey had his head cocked to a side, his eyes were heavy-lidded and soft, his lips now in a small smile-smirk due to catching a slip up from him.

The burning, choking, drowning feeling of those initial words washed away and suddenly he realized what he was filled with was light. The same light that keeps Joeys eyes glowing even in the darkest nights, and the darkest rooms. The lightning that sent a tingling charge up his veins when his hand instinctively moved forward laced their fingers together. It was a star that was all his, that he could almost taste when his lips caught Joey's and he never thought kissing someone with such gentleness and fragility and care would surge so much of something through him. Something he'd rather not think about. He would rather just feel. And thank all the cosmos for Joey Wheeler's ability to make him feel so much he thought he would burst.

He surprised himself one last time when he pressed his forehead to Joey's, took a deep breath and reciprocated the words back to him. With full autonomy and control, confidence back in his voice, but he knew the words still shook slightly, and he knew Joey noticed it too. Words that were so raw to him he practically felt sharp pricks in the inside of his throat when he said it, but he wanted to force it out anyway, despite his body's reaction. He's engulfed by light, he's feeling so much of that something he was too afraid to comprehend, too afraid it will make him shatter from the inside and explode. But if he were to burst from the light Joey has drowned him in, then he wouldn't mind bursting at all.

_Thank you. I'm sorry. I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> A/N My first fic ever written should naturally be the cheesiest cheesecake of the lot. Inspired by a real-life fuck up I did, unfortunately. I have some bigger fics brewing but i'm a bit stuck on those at the moment, so I thought i'd write out a quick one for these two lads. Also Happy Birthday Joey????!?
> 
> I'm not really a writer. I draw most of the time. I've got a bad habit of switching tenses and missing out words, so if there's anything that just seems super off let me know!!


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